Came a Horseman.

Now that our global Olympic love-in is over, let’s get back to more important stuff than Usain Bolt’s speed, and Michael Phelps’ physique.

Can you honestly believe that the starvation pictures from Biafra that we grew up with are back? This time it is on a much wider basis, too. Didn’t we solve this problem? Didn’t we all look at Africa, and see that there were entire countries’ being starved to death and we had to do something about it? Wasn’t that unforgettable Saturday of Live Aid in the mid-eighties meant to shake everyone by the shoulders, and point out that people were DYING for God’s sake. A lack of food while we in the Western, first World were pigging out like gluttonous, porcine, caricatures of human beings?

Well since then, the World has changed. An imperceptible creep of technology and money that once again has the Apocalyptic Horsemen on his mount, pawing the ground next to little brown children. Perhaps it is these two driving forces that can be called the real Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Our drive to ‘Green the World’ starting in the late 1970’s led to far more productive farms all over the planet: Fertilizers got better, farm equipment mechanisation grew exponentially, making these leviathans cheaper to buy. Farmers could afford more of them, and then afford to mix some genetically engineered crops into their crop rotations. Crops were bigger, and warehousing became a problem. Prices began to drop as Food surpluses grew. For the various ‘bread baskets’ across the Prairie world, it was a boom time. Then came the turn of the Century, and things started to change.

Large Agri-business had been used to manipulating crop prices to ensure that prices remained the same. By a hedge in case of a sudden surge in these prices, and you can still make  money when life becomes bad. Like any addiction (in this case, to profits.), it becomes normal to up the rate of your smokes or drinks on a daily basis, until you need more and more to get through the day.

Ten the climate starting to change, and yields started to go down in the historically poor parts of the World. This only made the stocks in the West worth more, so even more crops were planted to make even more money. In the EU, 15% of all cereal crops have been put aside for Ethanol fuel.

Now add in the fossil fuel problem, and an unbelievable amount of corn was set aside for fuel consumption – Governments actually paid farmers to do this. Unfortunately, this happened at the same time as Peak Oil, making the price of fuel even more expensive as it was realised that Ethanol wasn’t that much of a ‘miracle idea’ after all.

Coincidentally, traditional poor countries (Those darned BRIC states again) began to grow a middle class. This was in part due to them earning more money thanks to the influx of cash from investors in the West looking for even more money. This middle class started to eat in a completely different way now that they could afford more. Arable land began to be put on one side for meat crops, instead of traditional grain.

In the US, the 2007 Wheat crop was a 60-year low.

So here we are in the mid 2000’s, looking once again at awful words like Famine, and starvation: This is not a scare tactic, this is real. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation require another $1.7 Billion to import non-existent cereal crops into the poorest countries in the World, and simply haven’t got the money to do so. Food riots have already started, and food convoys require armed escorts. We are very close to one small breath onto this House of Cards to begin political instability (Come on down, Zimbabwe!) that may begin even more wars, proxy side-taking between Superpowers, and the spectre of more Horsemen joining the hunting party.

This blogger’s research has some countries for you to watch: Burkina Faso, Niger, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon. Once again, the vultures are circling over Africa. What can we do this time? Hold another rock concert, or change the way that we live in order to give life to the rest of the planet?

Faster, Higher, Greedier

Any Blog dealing with how the modern World has been corrupted by the corporatization of everything, and the spectre of global puppeteers affecting our lives, has to mention the Olympic games. As pointed out by the brilliant journalist, Doug Sanders recently, the IOC needs this games to be run by an authoritarian regime like China. It needs this immense quadrennial exercise in self-promotion to get bigger, but there aren’t many governments left that can support it.

I went through most of the 90’s hating the nostalgia of the 1960’s that washed through our popular culture: Movies, trends, and TV that celebrated ten years in the lives of writers, producers and actors alike; almost God-like reinventions of Political, Artistic and Business figures, and the presentation of basically everyday decision to the importance of The Big Bang. I now realise that these movies, trends, songs and virtually everything else were exercises in nostalgia when these current day human megaphones were younger, more easily impressed, and who felt cheated by the decades since their ‘golden age’. From Oliver Stone’s fantasies about Vietnam and the US at the time, to the agenda pushed on us that if JFK, Bobby, and Martin had lived, the World would have been different. Of course, as I now reach their age, I am beginning to feel the same.

I wasn’t even 10 years old in 1970, so while my cohort saw the other side of the coin (Nixon, Northern Ireland, Airline terrorism etc.), my childhood was full of two great movements: The Space Race and the Olympics every two years: It seemed to me the fact that we were going to the moon, and could put live TV pictures of amateur athletes battling each other for nothing more than a hunk of metal at the end of a ribbon were both examples of a not-too-distant future when we could bury all known hatchets, and live together as grown ups, not squabble like bored 3 year-olds at your Aunt’s house on a Sunday afternoon. It has only recently that it has become clear to me that these two great human endeavours were simply part of the Cold War that haunted my life for 30 years. The Olympic Games as a political tool? Yes! And being promoted by one of the largest, and unaccountable, movements on earth.

In Mexico in 1968, the two ‘Black Power’ salutes on the podium was a way that the old USSR could crow about how America was at war with itself. The US was embarrassed and forbade anything like that ever again, but by the time Munich ’72 came around the sheer amount of USSR and US athletes marching in a paramilitary fashion reached proportions only seen on May Day parades in Moscow. Only the missiles and tanks were missing. The slaughter of Israeli athletes was – in a way – proof that while these two nations stared each other down, other smaller nations with political agendas and a disregard for human life could grab their own headlines. With Security a major issue for 1976, Montreal was chosen as a safe haven that the Americans could ‘look after’.

If the Americans could salve it’s conscious over Vietnam, and make sure that all of its athletes were safe, it was to boycott the Moscow Olympics, and the Soviets returned the favour in Los Angeles. It is not a stretch of the imagination to understand that the US supported Seoul’s bid for the 1988 Olympics in order to protect ‘everyone’ from the North and the evil empire. They got a break when the USSR went bankrupt, so we had a Spanish Olympics and then an Australian one. Neither of which were as successful as 1984, which, in a turnaround from 8 years earlier, did nothing for sport in the States, or LA in particular, but were a huge financial success. The Athens games almost bankrupted the entire country, so the IOC needed a large nation to step forward and re-start the Cold war – especially as the European Union would help out the London bid for 2012. That is why China is hosting the largest peacetime movement of people in human history, and hosting it in an architectural centrepiece that is the largest indoor space ever built on the planet.

Heroes will be made (and you know it’s Michael Phelps, thanks to the amount of ink and pixels spent on him), and hunks of metal on ribbons will be won and lost. Billions of TV’s will watch the games – probably the most ever but this isn’t ‘China’s coming out party’ or anything else so altruistic. The real winner will be the advertisers opening up new markets for luxury goods that people cannot afford, and – most of all – the money held in trust by the IOC. They have gone through 10 Olympiads growing their brand to the most recognised on earth, and raking in Billions of dollars. They have nowhere to go but up, but is there anywhere left to go? Is there anyone rich enough to host future games? Is there anyone that can afford it?

If not, it’s going to simply end – the most successful business model of all time. One whose logo is understood by every person on earth, and whose public aims are completely  misunderstood. “We will support war if it means making money.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul says: “We are OK” Someone tell the experts

In a recent business headline page, I found three well known companies highlighted with current financial news. It made me wonder what is the most important thing to us? Finances, communication, or information.

The liberal democrat in me leans toward communication, of course. If we can’t talk to someone, and find out what they feel is important, then how can we find common ground?  That looks so cliched, looking at it in print, but bear with me. I was waiting for a ride downtown in our local city last week, and was approached by the usual crazy. Dressed in warm weather clothes in a heatwave, broken glasses, voice too loud, and repeating words  over and over again. Part of me wanted to run. I didn’t feel threatened, so it must have been guilt. He only wanted a smoke, but I apologized and said no. I am a firm believer that giving a little bit to someone who has nothing only exacerbates the poverty cycle. If we all said no, then no-one would bother us, because they knew they wouldn’t receive. Great! That’s really lib-Dem.

He looked at me, shrugged and said: “Well, they’re bad for your health, anyway. How are you doing?” I have never had my health questioned by a homeless person. I was so shocked, I carried on with the conversation. In five minutes, I found out that his name was Paul. He had a room close by, so he was better off than some of those “poor people out there”, he felt good, came from about 50 miles away in the country, but never went home anymore, because he didn’t feel comfortable. Yes, he was in hospital, but they couldn’t help, so he left. He knows that he’s a “bit out there”, but loves life. “Not everyone’s bad.”, he said. Just in trouble, sometimes, and the drugs make them go a bit bad. Not him, though. I said that everyone is basically good, and he agreed. Then he made his excuses and went away looking for a smoke. Just a conversation with a random stranger, but it made my day. I was glad to see that Paul wasn’t in trouble.

So, information was also passed, and that was what really made me feel good. I thought that I had grabbed a bottle from the sea, and read a small message. Perhaps information is just as important as communication. After all, you need something to say, once you touch someone else – even if you don’t know anything, you can still listen.

Is it any wonder, then, that two of these companies highlighted in the paper were Google and AT&T.

The first is doing well; Stock price up 20 per cent thanks to wonderful recent quarter results that ’surprised industry analyst’s. These stocks are now worrth  over $530 US each, and this surge had added $28-Billion in company value. What? $28 Bill for a website? What do they do? If I don’t know something, do I immediately “google it”? Does this add to their advertising rate? I use the service a lot, but I cannot remember ever clicking on a single ad. If I want to know something, I think of the people I know that may know something, and call them.

Weird, then, that AT & T have announced they are cutting 4,600 jobs and take a downswing of $347-Million U.S. What? If a phone company can’t make money, then who can? Every month I check my phone bill and wonder how the hell it costs me over $80 per month when I have stopped making calls becasue I can no longer afford it. Surely the only people that couldn’t make money in the communications industry would be my new friend, Paul? Well, they obviously haven’t been checking Google news items, where it’s obvious that everyone is going wireless, and mobile advertising is coming up next. Didn’t you see that change in the tide? Whoops.

I would like to say that those famous ‘Industry Analysts’ had something to say about AT & T’s downturn, but they didn’t. Someone, somewhere, though, is looking at this stock price and making a decision about the future worth of your portfolio, and retirement plans. Most likely they would work for a financial services company. One of the World’s biggest, Citibank, recently announced that they would cut over 9,000 jobs (Whose going to analyze Industries, now?), and their current loss due to the credit crunch is now $15 Billion. These are the ‘experts’, folks. These are the ones making decisions about which companies are good and which are no good. They are the ones surpised by how good that Google did, and who were taken by surprise by the slippage in AT & T.

A recent upswing in Google’s stock price, mean that this company can take just a portion of their last three month’s profits, and bale both the other two companies out. Would the World be a better place with Google in charge?

I would like to think that if they were, there would be fewer Paul’s around. However, that would mean that I wouldn’t learn something waiting for a ride. Discuss.